


Invisible Lines of Propriety

by orphan_account



Category: Firefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-31
Updated: 2003-08-31
Packaged: 2019-08-27 08:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16699237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Invisible Lines of Proprietyby shydayAugust 31, 2003





	Invisible Lines of Propriety

**Author's Note:**

> [_Invisible Lines of Propriety_](https://ff-friday.livejournal.com/105633.html) by shyday  
> August 31, 2003  
> 

There are rules, rules she doesn't entirely understand. This is acceptable, but that is not. Touch here and here but not there—invisible lines of propriety drawn on skin. Sometimes his body is a map decorated with colors, zones of forbidden space dotted by smooth islands of neutrality. When she unknowingly strays into a prohibited area, she can feel the alarms ringing through his entire body.

Almost every map she's ever seen has been laced with tracks, and his map is no different. Love comes in many forms, and each one has its own track to follow. Proscribed routes from which there can be no deviations, lines laid down long ago by someone with the power to direct the traffic of worlds. Decisions made and marked with steel and wood, inarguable and unchanging. One love may travel through this country, while another is forced to forever avoid it. The passengers can complain and yearn for unexplored terrain, but their tickets are stamped and dated and coded as nonrefundable. There can be no arguments in the face of such history and law.

She's only had a stolen glimpse or two of this particular map, and it has a way of disappearing from her memory when other pictures come to crowd it out. Like something she memorized before all the chaos, back when it was quiet enough for her to concentrate. She used to know where all the tracks led, used to know which train belonged to each. She knew routes and schedules and the price of a ticket, but it's all out of focus now.

Now she's forced to practice her clumsy cartography again and again, wet ink lines drawn with fingertips and erased by flinching frowns.

Hands intertwining, heads on shoulders. Comforting arms and fingers running soothing through hair. These fall within the thick black boundary lines of safe territory. But those lines are always shifting, it seems, wavering and thinning until at times they might be barely there at all. Check the signals for warnings and clues before moving ahead.

Sometimes, though, the signal lights on the track are faulty, not to be trusted. More than once have they led her astray, sending the message to proceed only to derail her once she turns a blind corner.

Quick freeze alarm; tension replacing softness and warmth. Caressing hands turn to push away, and she recognizes through the spreading cold loneliness that she has jumped the track yet again. He moves away from her, every inch the ripping removal of another railroad tie.

He says it's wrong. She longs for a map more clearly labeled.


End file.
